When Sean Doyle finished ninth in the season-opening PVIAC alpine race, the Frontier Regional junior knew exactly what it meant.

“I needed to step things up,” said Doyle, who felt he hadn’t got enough training days in before the season opened. “It was a little of both” the weather and being busy with other things.

The disappointing early result pushed Doyle to refocus, train harder and put his attention on the part of the race he was struggling with the most.

“I worked on my starts,” he said. “That was what was really killing me. I also concentrated on my turn shapes. There were a lot of little things to fix.”

Doyle’s results improved quickly.

He was third in the second meet and took second in four of the final five.

“I finally figured out how to ski again,” Doyle said.

Overall, he finished the regular season second in the league behind Mohawk’s Bryan Schwartz, who won all seven regular-season meets.

Doyle then won the PVIAC individual championship, the biggest race of the season, for his first individual win of the year.

“It felt really good to finally win,” said Doyle, who was second in the individual championship as a sophomore. “I look forward to bringing that to next year.”

For his efforts, Doyle earned his second consecutive Daily Hampshire Gazette Boys Skiing Player of the Year honor.

Doyle is joined by teammate Jacob Conroy, Greg Lerner and Jon Simonds of Amherst, Charles Denhart of Northampton and Austin Herman of Gateway Regional on the Gazette’s first team.

In the PVIAC championship, Doyle finished with a combined time of 61.07 seconds at Berkshire East in Charlemont. Schwartz settled for second at 61.45.

Doyle then finished 12th in the state championship race, also at Berkshire East. He posted times of 36.69 in the slalom and 45.33 in the giant slalom and was hurt by a slip at the end of the slalom run.

Doyle, who is playing third base and catching for the Frontier baseball team, said his goal for his senior year is to be more consistent.

“I’m going to have more focus and understand that I should be number one,” Doyle said. “Hopefully, with the all the training I’ve done, I can keep it that way.”